So, we’ve purchased a new apartment complex in Jacksonville, AR. It’s 46 units and is currently full (no discounts given to facebook-friends). It should be a good deal. I’m 100% confident that we bought it at a great price, the cash flow projections look good, the management is solid, and the occupancy rate is high.

We’re doing a good job at aligning our properties such that they are relatively close, the management is getting better as screening tenants, contractors are more understanding of our terms, and most of the properties have similar goals.

With any organization there is a “culture” that everyone buys into… that includes the owners, contactors, employees, management and even the tenants/customers. If you can’t get everyone to buy into the culture, you either have to change the culture or change the people.

The guys at the top typically define the culture… the guys at the bottom have to buy into the culture… if you’re at the bottom and you want to change the culture, you get repromanded… thats why turnover is so much higher at the bottom…. thats why you hear of so many employees that “just didn’t work out.”

If you want to change culture, the guys at the top have to change… and I mean they have to be replaced. Changing people is too hard to do.

      

I haven’t written in a while and its for good reason. I’ve been soooo busy lately.

Ok… not a good reason… but a reason. I’ll update everyone in a longer post but the skinny is this (in no specific order):

• A new hobby of fishing
• A new hobby of water sports
• Purchased a new apartment complex (bigger is better)
• iProv is BUSY
• Started Law School
• A new girlfriend (not so new)

      

I just got home from Florida. I was there for one of my bestfriend’s wedding.

As I was packing and unpacking, I started thinking that there are a lot of things that you either have way too much of or way too little of.

I thought it was funny. Maybe you will too… probably not.

1. contact cases
2. toilette paper
3. collar stays
4. socks
5. milk
6. eggs

I also started to realize that I wear 20% of my closet 80% of the time. I’m pretty sure thats true for most people. I’m going to increase that 20% number… by giving away clothes that I don’t wear.

I want less stuff.

      

I think its funny that you’ll see celebrities reading gossip magazines. Yet they kick and scream about how much they hate paparazii. They feed the frenzy by reading the magazine. I don’t blame them, I just think its ironic.

Facebook is the same way… when the minifeed was released, people were outraged. They yelled that they didn’t want people to know all their business. Yet every day (yes… daily), we log into facebook and skim the minifeed looking for entertainment or gossip.

And if you can’t view someone’s information, you kind of get upset. Is it a laziness/convenient issue??? Is it a “need for gossip/entertainment”? Who knows. The point is, the minifeed is just like the paparazzi… we love to hate it… and although we may hate paparazzi, we love them when they focus on other people.

      

I opened a new bank account last week. I chose Arvest because of all the positive things I’ve heard about it.

When I walked in, they smiled and greeted me… no different than what other banks COULD do.
As I waited for an associate, they offered me free water, coffee, and popcorn… a cheap add-on that other banks COULD offer
They told me about their hours from 7am to 7pm… availability that other banks COULD use.
They gave me free online banking… which other banks usually offer.

The point is… banking is becoming more and more like a commodity. They all offer the same products in a different package. The only thing that is differentiating them from one another is service.

If you have a business that cannot differentiate itself from it’s competitors, you have to focus A LOT of energy on service. And whether you want to admit it or not, you’re selling a commodity.

      

I just talked to a friend in Nebraska and he wants me to come up for a four day float trip. I recently went on a trip to Las Vegas where I stayed in a friend’s condo… How great is that.

So, my new wish is that my friends will scatter throughout the world so I can have hundreds of places to visit and a free place to stay. Go away so I have a place to stay… if you’re looking for company, invite me… I’ll take advantage of anyone that will let me.

Let me know if you have a cool place to visit and a free place to stay and if anyone wants a place to stay in Little Rock, just let me know.

      

I’ve been a big fan of Google Trends since it was released. Google Trends allows you to view a graph of search terms and compare how often those terms are searched over a time period. I’ve had a good time comparing random things like Jesus Versus Satan (Jesus trumps Satan), Girl versus Boy (girl wins), Jesus Versus Paris Hilton (Paris Hilton usually wins), etc.

I’ve got a new habit now… it’s Google’s Hot Trends. Google’s Hot Trends show the top 100 most popular searches for the day… I’m not real sure how things get on the list but I think its some kind of time calculation.

      

The following reasons are why I got rid of my Blackberry 8700… I’m going back to the pocket pc.

Pros for the Blackberry
———————-

1. The text messages are shown with the response below… you can always follow the conversation
2. The key pad has a full key board, much easier to type
3. Quick OS… not lag
4. Rarely needs to be reset
5. Durable… I dropped it at least 100 times
6. Searching is easy and fast

Cons Against the Blackberry
—————————

1. When it is reset, it takes forever to reboot (almost 5 minutes)
2. No touch screen
3. Doesn’t synchronize with outlook very well… funny error messages, asks hundreds of questions while syncing, etc.
4. I can’t access my call log while on the phone
5. Can’t take pictures
6. Can’t play mp3
7. Cannot effectively use MS Word or Excel
8. No Expansion Card
9. Limited Software Applications

      

Hundreds of startups are started as widgets (third party item that can be embedded in a web page) on myspace such as photobucket, rockyou, etc.

The new facebook platform will do the same thing except with a smaller audience (about a third of the size of myspace) but a better platform. It will be better integrated with the existing system (news feeds, note posting, etc) when compared to myspace. Myspace simply throws the widget on the page and has no way of tying different parts of the site together (you cannot tag people in photos, tag someone for a note, or view “news feeds”).

Myspace has an unstable infrastructure (we’re all use to the page crashes and unidentified errors), ugly design, and poor integration. IMHO, myspace it the thousand pound gorilla that was created poorly in the beginning. It’s gotten so big, that changing the infrastructure is difficult to do. They can’t implement the things as fast as facebook due to their popularity and due to the fact that they’re tied to a fat, ugly system. It’s like trying to move three thousand people from a raft, to a cruise ship… It just can’t be done. Moving them to dump they’re users in the water (aka it requires you to take a system down for a bit).

Rather than moving them (the users have to be in the water for a little bit), myspace is slowly trying to patch holes in their raft. They’re trying to turn the raft into a cruise ship…Tuff Luck.

Myspace… you’re only hope is this… admit that you don’t have a cruise ship… build one. Take the site down for a little bit and move everyone over to a cruise ship. Quit trying to make the cruise ship out of the raft. If you don’t… you’re going to sink. Or… people are going to dive off of your raft and swim to a cruise ship.

Do you get the point? I expect a response Mr. Murdoch.

      

Its 2:30am and I’m I’m just going to bed. I spent the last 4 hours working on a proposal that we may, or may not, get. And before I received it, someone else worked on it for an hour. As I was about to lay down to go to bed, I realized that I probably need to bring up two points.

Point One
I have three other proposals that are staring me in the face every day. And I need to finish them because proposals bring in money. Not immediately but eventually. The way it works is this: leads turn into meetings turn into proposals turn into sales which turn into money. It’s all a numbers game. So, when you realize that you don’t have anything going or that you’re not making enough money (in sales) it’s probably because you don’t have enough poles in the water (a good sentence since I’m at the lake). Don’t complain because you don’t have money, complain because you haven’t drummed up enough leads, went to enough meetings, or finished enough proposals.

Point Two
When you look at someone’s hourly rate, think about how much work goes into the work before the work even starts. I know… that’s confusing to think about, but I’ve already invested 4 hours into a proposal that I may get… If I get 25% of the work that I write proposals for, I would get 1 job out of every 4 proposals. If I took 4 hours to develop each proposal, It would take me 16 hours worth of work to get 1 job.

Other things to think about when developing your hourly rate: taxes, vacation, insurance, and other stuff that needs to be paid since you’re employer isn’t paying for you.